Ken McGuire

The War Of The Worlds Airs Tonight

The last few weeks have shot by in nothing but a blur. Work life is changing and evolving, music is moving, I’ve been involved in another festival, thrown a bunch of gigs and managed to pull off my third theatre production of the year, again donning one of the producer hats available from The Devious Theatre Company’s hat box.

It all comes down to tonight.

The Devious Theatre Company (of which I’m involved in running and have been since May 2006) proudly present our own version of H.G. Wells’ classic ‘The War Of The Worlds’, airing tonight on KCLR96FM. You can pick up KCLR in Carlow, Kilkenny, south Kilkenny and areas of Waterford and surrounding counties. If you’re well outside the range or would like to listen in from foreign soil, you can do so by hitting the station’s website on KCLR96FM.com.

We’ve been working on the show solid for the past 2-3 weeks with many a late night had in the recording studio (including this Tuesday gone) in the buildup to handing over the finished production to the station yesterday.

As a company we’ve built up a nice reputation in Kilkenny. War Of The Worlds marks our fifth production (fifth new production as we brought one show back for two further runs in 2006 and 2007) and our first foray into the world of theatre for radio. We’ve concentrated so much on the visual – sets, costumes, lighting, makeup, props, the venue, our advertising, promotional photos, posters but this show turns it on it’s head.

The Bigger Picture

Taking a step back to look at the bigger picture, I have to hand it to the lads, and ourselves as a company. We’ve come through two tough productions with Trainspotting (June 2008), Smitten (August 2008) and with little or no break we ran straight into The War Of The Worlds, writing an entirely new script, casting, scheduling, sourcing sound effects and learning to concentrate on everything you don’t see. It’s one thing producing a piece of work for an audience who will sit and watch you, but another thing altogether in producing a piece of work for an audience you want to sit and listen to you.

But everyone pulled it together, that’s what we do when we’re working as a proper functioning theme. You’re an actor, but you’re also the producer, the director, the driver, the one that goes for food, the one that remembers to bring biscuits and tea, the one that stays up all night mixing – we’re all of those. So while it’s a brilliant move for the company, it’s a brilliant show of teamwork as everyone had a part to play and everyone played it so well.

Not only that, but they managed to wrap it into a neat bundle that airs tonight around 9:03pm and runs for 53 minutes and 57 seconds. And we did it all without any external technical support. We were offered the use of the radio station for production but we opted to carry the can ourselves knowing we’ve got the ability to pull it off.

I’ve held back from listening to the finished version (we’re having a listening party tonight) though initial feedback from the station calls the show “absolutely fantastic”. Fingers crossed.

I’ll be on the radio later this morning (just after the 11am news) talking about the show. You can listen in live via KCLR96FM.com.

To those of you who are listening in tonight, thank you very much. From myself and all at The Devious Theatre Company I really do hope you enjoy the efforts of the group as much as we’ve enjoyed producing it. If it all goes well then maybe we’ll gun for another one next year. Our thanks too go out to all at KCLR for their support and in giving us the opportunity and airtime to develop another original production.

For those of you who can’t listen in tonight then don’t despair, we’ve something nice in store for you too.